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Friday, June 10, 2016

Covering or Covering Up ? How Kenyan Media Betrays Kenya

On the eve of Madarka
Day, CNN’s Robyn Kriel dropped bombshell. Her investigations had revealed that
the Kenya government was engaged in covering up the truth surrounding the
deaths of at least 141 Kenyan troops in El Adde, Somalia. The story made headlines
around the world. However, here, where it should have mattered most, it was
mostly ignored by the local press.

Why? In January when the
slaughter happened, it was on the front page of every newspaper. But soon
thereafter, it became clear that the media was being careful not to raise too
many uncomfortable questions. Over the course of the last 6 months, even as
further revelations, including Al Shabaab’s release of footage of the attack,
showed gaping holes in the official version of events, the press has
demonstrated little inclination to pursue the story. Though long whispered in
newsrooms, that it took a foreign journalist to provide the first serious look
at potential casualty numbers is most telling.

As I wrote this, news broke of yet another Al Shabaab attack, this time on an Ethiopian-manned base in Somalia. This time, the Kenyan media had few qualms about speculating on casualties or handing the terrorists a propaganda coup, the very excuses it has offered for not pursuing the El Adde story. That the coverage of the attack on the Ethiopians was carefully scrubbed of any mention of El Adde despite the obvious similarities, betrays their real concern: sparing KDF and government blushes.

Meantime, official statements about other events in Somalia continue to rampage
across the headlines unchallenged. Kenya Defence Forces’ claims about
battlefield successes against the Al Shabaab are reported as gospel truth, even when the facts are in dispute. It
is a most curious and intriguing stance taken by a media fraternity that is
widely acclaimed as one of the most vibrant on the continent. In truth, the
accolades have routinely tended to overstate our media’s autonomy and gusto
while underplaying its short memory and its marked tendency to kowtow to
politicians and officialdom.

The coverage of the
current impasse over electoral reforms and over the fate of the Independent
Electoral and Boundaries Commission also highlights some of these shortcomings.
Since the 2013 general election, it has been obvious to anyone who cared to
look into it, that the electoral system is in dire straits. Its performance (as
well as that of the Supreme Court) in that poll left plenty to be desired and a
sharply divided country. Yet in the last 3 years, the media has not prioritized
the telling of this story. This despite the fact that a clear public interest
exists: violence has accompanied all but one election in the multiparty era and
the bungled 2007 contest almost tipped us into the abyss of anarchy and civil
war.

Indeed, it was not
until politicians exploited the situation to create a crisis that the media
collectively took note. And even then, the reporting has been little more than
an uncritical regurgitation of the opposing sides’ statements. Little energy is
expended in articulating the issues of disagreement and whether these reflect
simple party political and individual interests or are driven by a serious
desire and plan to protect the national interest. Is the dispute about
acquiring or preserving jobs for politicians or about fixing the broken system?

The media’s preoccupation
has been with the political battles, with picking the winner and losers, rather
than with the substance of the fight. A consequent failure to distinguish smoke
from fire has allowed the politicians to shape the public discourse in
self-serving ways that obscure what’s really at stake. This is how we have
ended up with a national debate about the rather absurd proposition that the
constitution somehow forbids dialogue or the equally preposterous idea that
IEBC commissioners can be fired by physically ejecting them from their offices
in Anniversary Towers.

Just as with the
tragic El Adde debacle, Kenyan media has mostly been a forum for obfuscation
and misdirection rather than a source of light and understanding. It has
betrayed the Kenyans who, at great cost in lives, took on autocrats to defend
the freedom it profits from and sadly abuses. When it abdicates its
agenda-setting role and conspires in the silencing of voices critical of
government; when it would rather cover up than expose official misdeeds; when
it becomes a megaphone for Orwellian doublespeak; then a free media becomes an
instrument of oppression and tyranny rather than a necessary bulwark against
it.